


Saltwater

by linndechir



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-11
Updated: 2013-04-11
Packaged: 2017-12-08 04:55:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/757292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/pseuds/linndechir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one thing the Seven Kingdoms seem to agree on is that revenge is sweet. Victarion doesn't think so.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saltwater

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [盐水丨Saltwater](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096913) by [iriskung](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iriskung/pseuds/iriskung)



> Written for one of the contests at the Tourney of the Hand (on the westerosorting comms on LJ). Now that the tourney is over, I thought I'd repost it here because I actually like it a lot.

The one thing the Seven Kingdoms seemed to agree on was that revenge was sweet, like a cool drink in the Dornish desert, like a soothing balm on a festering wound. The Martells drew their vengeance out over decades, while the Baratheons exacted theirs with impatient fury. The Lannisters prided themselves on never letting a debt go unpaid. They all thirsted for revenge as if it could ease even the greatest suffering.

The taste in Victarion's mouth was anything but sweet. It was the metallic, bitter taste of blood. It should have been familiar, he had tasted it since he was a boy, but this time it almost made him feel sick. There was a hollow emptiness in his chest, where his heart was still beating too fast, too loud, and the angry knot in his stomach had turned into a heavy lump. He licked his lips as if to clean them, but it only bathed his tongue in more blood. It tasted like his own, and he suddenly wasn't sure anymore if all blood tasted like that, or only his brother's.

Euron had been like a cancer, eating away at Victarion's happiness, at his very sanity for more years than he cared to count. Somehow Victarion had always thought that killing him, that purest act of them all, would rip this festering sore out of his soul. He had not expected it to be sweet, no, but liberating. More than he had wanted to kill Euron, he had wanted to be free of him.

Blood was cooling and drying on his fingers, a sickly smell filled the air. He stared down at the broken mess of his brother's face, but he didn't see crushed bones and torn flesh. As if through a thin red mist, he saw Euron's face as it had been before: almost too handsome if not for his blue lips, the eye patch, that glowing blue eye. And his smile. Victarion's fists had broken Euron's teeth, but he could still see his smile. He kept seeing it even as he closed his eyes, eyes that burnt with angry tears – he had been crying, too, when he had killed his wife, but those had been tears of sorrow as much as of anger. He wasn't weeping for Euron now, never for him. He was weeping again for the wife Euron had taken from him – he was seeing her face, too, whenever he closed his eyes, she haunted his thoughts at day and his dreams at night, and she turned the pleasure he found with any woman to ash. He was weeping for himself, too, for thinking he could find peace so easily, for thinking he would tear out the cancer when all he had done was to rip himself open for nothing.

After his wife's death he had been in such a rage that Balon had put him in chains for two days, and only let him out after Euron had sailed away. _The kinslayer is accursed in the eyes of gods and men_ , Balon had said, and although Victarion had known that to be true, he had never understood what it meant until now. That the one deed that could have brought him peace would haunt him for the rest of his life. The true curse was that he would never be free from Euron now.

The Dornish were wrong. Revenge was no sweet nectar. It was saltwater. And the Ironborn knew better than anyone else that saltwater would dry you up from the inside.


End file.
